Last week, a jury ordered Alex Jones to pay parents of children slain in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting nearly $50 million over his false statements that the shooting was a hoax and the kids were crisis actors. The damages include $4 million in compensatory and $45 million in punitive damages.
To families of the 20 children and six adults slain in the 2012 massacre, the judgment represents long-overdue accountability for Jones over his lies, which he was forced to acknowledge during these proceedings.
To Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), it’s totally unfair. In an appearance on Mike Lindell’s live stream from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this weekend, Greene suggested that Jones is a victim of “political persecution” and the award is much too high because it could put him out of business.
“This is real political persecution. Like I’ll use an example—and it’s not popular to say—but Alex Jones. Did he say crazy things that we don’t agree with? Yes.”
“…But they are treating him as he’s the man who went in and killed those children and he didn’t.”
Continuing, she opined, “It’s about intimidation. No amount of money, no court ruling, nothing will bring those people’s precious children back.”
To Greene, the Sandy Hook parents don’t deserve $50 million because Jones said a lot of other stuff on his show and this could “ruin” him.
“He didn’t build his InfoWars on that,” Greene said of Jones’ Sandy Hook lies. “He built it on a lot of other news.”
“And Alex Jones has been right pretty much most of the time.”
“Except on Sandy Hook,” she later qualified.
“But really though, look at what’s happening. Forty-five million dollars,” she said of the punitive damages.
Last week, Sandy Hook parents’ attorney revealed that Jones’ counsel inadvertently sent them the contents of his cell phone from the last two years. Those records include previously unknown information about InfoWars’ finances. During the case, Jones said a $2 million ruling would sink him and attempted to file bankruptcy. But according to those texts, in 2018, he was reportedly making upwards of $800,000 a day.
Like Jones, Greene has often spouted conspiracy theories, most notably QAnon, the belief that Democrats are baby-eating pedophiles who worship Satan.
Also like Jones, Greene later walked back some of those conspiracies.
“School shootings are absolutely real, and every child that is lost, those families mourn it,” she said last year. She also admitted that 9/11 happened.
